Case Number 19178

THE LEOPARD: CRITERION COLLECTION (BLU-RAY)

The Charge

"Things will have to change in order that they remain the
same."

Opening Statement

Nineteenth century Italy was marked by violence and strife as revolutionaries
slowly transformed the country from a conglomeration of feudal states governed
by foreign powers into a unified national state. The period is known as the
Risorgimento. Its great hero is Giuseppe Garibaldi, whose landing in
Marsala in May of 1860 is as seminal a moment to the Risorgimento as
Washington's crossing the Delaware is to the American Revolution.

The Risorgimento became the backdrop for Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's 1958
novel Il Gattopardo. Lampedusa was one of the last vestiges of the old
Sicilian aristocracy. His book is based on the effects of unification on his own
family (especially his great-grandfather). Its rich detail and emotional potency
made Il Gattopardo one of the most successful and highly regarded Italian
novels of the 20th century, despite the fact that it takes an antagonistic view
of Garibaldi, one of the great national heroes of Italy.

The book inspired Luchino Visconti (The Damned) to direct a 1963 film
adaptation that is regarded as one of the most important Italian movies of the
last century. Criterion previously delivered a lush three-disc DVD treatment of
Visconti's masterpiece that included two versions of the movie as well as a
boat-load of extras. That wonderful set has now been graced with an upgrade to
high definition.

Facts of the Case

The Leopard opens in 1860 with the news that Garibaldi has landed in
Marsala, a development that displeases Prince Don Fabrizio Salina (Burt
Lancaster, Elmer Gantry), a member of the Sicilian aristocracy. The
prince and his hangers-on ponder how to deal with the three warring factions --
the republicans, the monarchists, and Garibaldi's revolutionaries -- in order to
best maintain the family's wealth and prestige as change rapidly overtakes
Italy. Meanwhile, Don Fabrizio's family life is complicated when his upstart
nephew Tancredi Falconeri (Alain Delon, Le Samourai) rejects his daughter
in favor of the beautiful Angelica Sedara (Claudia Cardinale, Once Upon a
Time in the West), the daughter of a nouveau riche merchant the prince and
his family consider beneath them.

The Evidence

By most accounts, Luchino Visconti's film version of The Leopard is
even better than Lampedusa's fine novel. That's because, while the novel is
undoubtedly more historically detailed, it's not as emotionally and thematically
rich. Lampedusa identified so strongly with his protagonist (named Don Cobrero
in the book) that his political loyalties are obvious: He unapologetically
laments the collapse of the old aristocracy. Visconti's take on the material is
far more politically ambivalent. He treats Don Fabrizio with a mix of admiration
and disgust that is a central component of the complex and ambiguous
socio-political tapestry at the center of the movie. Visconti himself was born
into the Italian aristocracy and came by his far-left political sensibilities as
an adult (he joined the Communist Party during World War II). The result of this
dissonance in Visconti's experience is a man who is deeply critical of what the
Italian moneyed class represents, but is also too intimately familiar with the
world of the aristocracy to reduce its members to inhuman political exploiters.
The Leopard is Visconti's wistful elegy to a class system that he
despises on principle but remembers with no small amount of nostalgia.

Watching The Leopard, it's no surprise that Visconti was as
accomplished a director of opera as he was of film. On the surface, the movie
may appear to have much in common with Hollywood epics like Gone with the
Wind or Doctor Zhivago, but it packs far less plot and drama into its
three-hour-and-five-minute running time than either of those films. The
Leopard is mostly a series labyrinthine conversations, rarely offering
histrionics beyond the deep furrows of concern in Don Fabrizio's brow. The movie
doesn't drag, though, because Visconti establishes an almost musical rhythm to
his cutting, enhancing the picture's melancholy, elegiac tone. The performances,
too, are magnetic. Lancaster is transcendent as the fading prince, his star
power endowing him with a masculine presence that makes him the center of
gravity in every scene he occupies. We believe that the other characters would
be in awe of Fabrizio in large part because the other actors seem to be in awe
of Lancaster (Visconti originally wanted Marlon Brando in the role, but was
forced by the studio to accept Lancaster; it's difficult to imagine that the
Brando of the early '60s could have matched the unsettling mix of enormous
self-confidence and sublimated sadness that Lancaster delivers with so much
skill that his work appears effortless). Alain Delon plays Tancredi's pragmatism
and innate grasp of realpolitik with such rakish charm that we can't hold it
against him. Those who are only familiar with Claudia Cardinale from Once
Upon a Time in the West or8 1/2 would do well to check her out here
just to get a better sense of the range of her talent. Neither a woman in charge
or a seductress, in The Leopard she plays a beautiful young woman who is
at once at least partially aware of her own sexual power yet also oblivious to
how ill equipped she is to maneuver the complex rules of propriety that govern
Italy's ruling class. Her performance is subtle and amazing.

Even if the performances weren't mesmerizing, the movie's gorgeous visuals
-- a collaboration between Visconti and director of photography Giuseppe Rotunno
(Popeye) -- would be more than enough to draw us in. To use a well-worn
cliché, Sicily is a character in the film. From the aged but opulent beauty
of Fabrizio's estates to the rolling fields of olive trees, every frame of the
movie is beautiful enough to make one's eyeballs melt. That Visconti allows
languid takes and moves his camera with slow precision allows us to gaze with
awed wonder at the fantastic visuals. The Leopard's relatively slow pace
isn't a problem; it's one of the best things about the movie. Criterion's DVD
release of The Leopard was a stunning visual achievement that arguably
topped the heap of the collection's many stunning visual achievements. This
Blu-ray release blows that DVD out of the water. It is, quite possibly, the most
gorgeous thing the Criterion Collection has ever produced. According to their
typically detailed liner notes, the 1080p transfer comes courtesy of the movie's
original 35mm negative. The mastering process was supervised by Giuseppe
Rotunno. The presentation is in the film's original Super Technirama aspect
ratio of 2.21:1. Let me be blunt here: The image on this Blu-ray is reference
quality in every way, shape, and form. Detail and color reproduction are
exceptional. Digital artifacts are non-existent. Visconti and Rotunno shot
The Leopard with the same level of photographic clarity one sees in
Stanley Kubrick's work. This Blu-ray shows off every pore on the actors' skin,
every rich color, every subtlety of lighting to maximum effect.

Audio is a single-channel, uncompressed Linear PCM presentation of the
movie's original analog monaural Italian track. For obvious reasons, the track
is pinched and offers a flat dynamic range, but it's still less shrill than the
Dolby mono track on the old DVD. It is a top-notch presentation of a very
limited source.

The set's two Blu-ray discs house the same hefty load of extras that were
included in Criterion's original three-disc DVD release. The only supplement on
the first disc is an excellent feature-length audio commentary by film scholar
Peter Cowie, who has written books about everything from the films of Ingmar
Bergman to The Godfather, and proves quite knowledgeable about
Visconti.

Disc Two kicks off with the 161-minute American version of The
Leopard, which is mostly interesting because it includes Lancaster's voice
instead of the actor's who dubbed him for the Italian version. Make no mistake,
the American version is treated as a supplement here, not a full-fledged second
helping of the movie. While the 1080i transfer is decent, neither its color
reproduction nor its fine detail holds a candle to the presentation on Disc One.
The source displays plenty of minor print damage like flecks and small
scratches. The dated Criterion logo that precedes the picture as well as the
Dolby mono audio track are sure indications that the presentation is merely an
up-conversion of the transfer that appeared on the second disc of the previously
released three-disc DVD.

Disc Two also contains a collection of documentaries, interviews, and other
goodies:

A Dying Breed: The Making of The Leopard (61:37) is a fine
making-of documentary, produced by Criterion in 2003. It features interviews
with Claudia Cardinale, screenwriter Enrico Medioli, director Sydney Pollack
(who knew his Visconti), and others. The documentary delves into Lampedusa's
novel as well as the production of the movie.

"Geoffredo Lombardo Interview" (19:34) is a sit-down with the
producer whose Titanus studio was bankrupted by Visconti's movie. Far from
bitter, Lombardo is deeply proud of The Leopard, considering it the
greatest film he ever produced.

"The History of the Risorgimento" (13:40) is a video interview
with Italian culture scholar Millicent Marcus, who provides helpful historical
context for viewing The Leopard. Nineteenth-century Italian history is
complex, and Marcus's notes are a boon for those wanting to sort out the various
loyalties of the characters in the film.

In addition to the documentaries and interviews, there is a poster gallery,
Italian promotional newsreels for the movie, an Italian trailer, and two
American trailers. There's also a stills gallery with a ton of photographs
divided into four different sections.

Closing Statement

What more do I need to say? The Leopard is a great movie, and this
Blu-ray presentation is so spectacular it hurts. If you claim to be a fan of
cinema, for the love of all that is holy, run out and buy this immediately.